Do you need to buy expensive equipment?

The type of table tennis equipment you'll need to buy depends upon your standard of play. Basically, the higher your standard of play, the better the equipment you'll need to buy.

But if you're a beginner, you can start playing table tennis using very simple and inexpensive equipment.

I started playing table tennis using very cheap rackets and balls from our local sports store and played on a home-made table that was about two thirds the size of a regular table in our dad's garage.

And when it was too cold to play in the garage, my sister and I used to convert the dining table in our parents' kitchen into a table tennis table - with hardback books lined up across the middle of the table for our net.

But the more I played, the more I improved, so I started using better quality equipment.

Many general sports stores sell a selection of basic and inexpensive table tennis equipment - but if you're serious about this great sport of ours, you'll need to seek out better equipment from the specialist suppliers.